AC1221 stopped working :(

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • Hi,


    I bought an ACA1221 in August 2015 with the intention of getting a WHDLoad A1200 system setup. I finally got round to it today (I have children...) and the board initially worked, on a KS3.0 machine I had, but was unstable - I decided to try it in a 3.1 KS machine I had but it wouldn't boot - black screen, green power light (not pulsing) and no response to holding down both mouse buttons.


    I swapped back to the unstable 3.0 machine and now the same thing happens there.


    Do I have a dead board? :(

  • To provide a little more details... I have three A1200 mainboards - two Commodore versions with Kickstart 3.0 and one Escom with Kickstart 3.1.


    One of the Commodore boards has a video output issue, where the boot screen can be seen but only behind a flickery white interference pattern. The other two machines work fine. On all three, the following happens when the ACA1221 is connected and the machine is powered on:


    - video outputs a black screen (except the problematic board, which is just white interference)

    - power light comes on solid green

    - no activity from the floppy drive - inserted disks are ignored

    - no activity from the IDE port - my CF adapter has a red LED visible through the case, when the ACA1221 is connected, nothing happens.


    Without the ACA1221:


    - video output is normal, boots to purple 'insert disk' screen, or boots from IDE if connected (again, except for the problematic board, where the 'insert disk' screen can be seen through the white flickery mess)

    - power light function is normal

    - boot from floppy is possible and works

    - boot from IDE is possible and works


    One theory: it may have stopped working around the point of ten power cycles... there is some trial mode limit, as I understand it, could this be a factor?

  • The number of trials is only counted down if the trial jumper is set. This is not the case by default - you would have to do that on your own. This may really be the case, and you may have forgotten that you did it almost four years ago.


    There is a CPLD upgrade for the ACA1221, and that takes care of a few things that a "normal" A1200 does not need. It's indeed about startup and swing-in of the 5V regulation after power-up. I have looked into this when a number of ACA500plus users with the ACA1221 have reported trouble, which I could not reproduce here. So one of the customers sent me his PSU, and I was able to reproduce the issue - and even make a fix for it in the logic of the card.


    The upgrade also introduces the "overdrive" mode, which may be interesting if you have one of the faster masks of the 68020 CPU: It converts the highest clock setting of the card to 42.5MHz if you have all licenses installed (all mem, all clock rates and MapROM). If you are after all that, then the CPLD upgrade may be worth it, but if you just want to play a few games, I'd save the money for the kid's next bicycle or so.

  • The last reply was more than 365 days ago, this thread is most likely obsolete. It is recommended to create a new thread instead.

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